Mediating digital services: discussion outcomesNotes by Marc Lunness, Web & Multimedia Editor, East Renfrewshire Council

Host was Tim Burnett of Connection Point. He mainly wanted to talk about the web chat product his company offers.

Co-host was Sharon Fraser-Martin, Senior Communications Manager at Edinburgh City Council.

Sharon talked about their Assisted digital** service. This is an employee who provides a free service to train Edinburgh residents how to use the council’s online digital services, from website to payment, depending on which devices people have access to. Sessions hosted in various council locations, e.g. libraries and community centres.

Edinburgh asked the question, if we go digital by default, do we alienate minority users? They felt it was better to be digital by desire and take a slower approach, ensuring they are supporting certain members of their community and promoting the benefits of digital services, instead of forcing people to use digital provision.*

Another council (unfortunately I didn’t note which) actually had their library staff re-trained to provide digital assistance in people’s homes when they visited them for book collection/distribution (service users with disabilities or mobile difficulties). They would show them how to use their devices to access council services online.

Dumfries and Galloway (Maria Copeland) have used a system called ‘Teletalk(?)’ which provides internet linked units installed in remote council locations that incorporate a scanner, webcam and touch screen. These allow users to come in with documentation and interact with customer staff directly on various services: a self-service digital booth. There was a lot of interest around the table of how to deliver such ‘click and connect’ services to users that may not have their own devices, similar to Argos’ ‘click and collect’ service (I’m not familiar with this, would need to read about it further).

*Mathew Rowe, Improvement Officer at Fife council, gave an interesting example of a digital service they set up by default that failed. They decided to move their Blue Badge application and registration processes completely online to remove the old paper based set up, but the project was deemed a failure.

The problem was general lack of uptake by the users and difficulties those that tried had in accessing the form. They had so many people unable to follow what to do that staff had to conduct more face to face sessions with people just to talk them through how to use the online service. So much so, that the original process was actually more efficient than all the face to face time needed. The questions of the form weren’t deemed a failure, but forcing users to use the digital system without an alternative or appropriate mediation in place in the event of difficulty meant their pilot digitised service wasn’t well received.

In contrast, Tim Burrett provided an example of a Cornish council that had a ‘meals on wheels’ application (including dietary requirements) that required the form be completed onsite with the help of a social worker taking up a couple of hours of their time (including the home visit). The council converted the application to an online form, but had it completed alongside a direct online (web) or telephone chat with a call centre operative which would only take about 25 minutes.

This lead Tim into talking about web chat solutions:

  • The same Cornish authority introduced web chat and in 6 months have had over 1000 conversations online (between the hours of 9 to 5)
  • This has reduced email queries significantly (would be interested to see exactly how much, he didn’t say which Cornish authority)
  • They’ve logged the point at which users seek assistance from web chat when using digital services as this has shed light on the exact points of failure for an online form or process
  • They could control the text/script the operatives should use in responding to the queries and could record the interaction for analysis
  • The council want to roll out web chat to cover more ‘out of hours’ provision that would provide additional flexible working options to council employees (at home, in evenings, on weekends etc.)

A really significant point that was raised about low socio-economic sections of the community is that they may not have a laptop, pc or internet connection at home, but the prevalence of smart phones with data allowances is increasing. Getting the mobile version of web services (particularly those more likely used by those on low incomes or benefits) functional is much more important for greater community breadth and depth of uptake.

**The final point I took away from Sharon’s discussion of their assisted digital project was that by recording and engaging with a group of individuals that were low in digital competence, the council had access to an excellent user testing group for all new forms and navigation elements. The assisted digital trainer logs all feedback and difficulties these users have which is in turn given to the web (form and site) designers/developers to try to make further usability improvements.